Once More Into the Breach
by Mikkeneko
Summary: Dragon Age/Pacific Rim fusion. When the Kaiju burst through the Breach into Thedas, it's up to Hawke and his copilot Varric to battle them back in the trusty Jaeger, Kirkwall Champion. But there are more dangers and more secrets hiding about the Kirkwall Shatterdome than they realize... Hawke/Anders, fusion, angst, humor, exhibition kink.
1. Chapter 1

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Summary:  
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Alarms were just part of life at Kirkwall Shatterdome; not a day went by without at least one klaxon blaring in the background of the cavernous, concrete-lined labyrinth. Anyone staying there for any length of time had to learn to identify what alarm went what by the tone, the volume, and the part of the base it was sounding off from, so they'd know whether they could go back to bed or scramble for their lives.

Which was why _this_ alarm made all four of the figures deeply involved with a ferocious game of Wicked Grace (no money; betting for chores only) stop what they were doing and look up intently, heads cocked like a hunting dog that heard the horns blowing to start the chase.

"That's definitely an incursion," Sebastian remarked, scraping one nail nervously against the edge of his cards. "Who do you think they'll send?"

"Not you; Fenris is laid up in the infirmary with a broken foot for at least another week," Hawke told Sebastian, who pulled a rueful face of agreement. He turned to the next member of their foursome, a dark-haired beauty who handled her cards like she'd been born with a deck in her hands. "And not you or Merrill either; Nature's Fury is still in drydock for repairs."

"Some people get all the fun," Isabela said with a pout.

"Guess it'll be either you or me, Hawke," said the fourth player with a rueful, self-deprecating smile. "And let's be honest, that means it'll probably be you. Your track record is much better than the Guard Captain's."

"That's just because you and Aveline haven't been in the game long enough," Hawke said generously. "You're still finding your feet together; your kill ratio will improve with enough kills to your name."

"I hope you're right; I know I can't really compare to Aveline's first..." Donnic began, but was cut off when the alarm klaxon suddenly silenced with a final raucous whoop.

The PA system crackled with a whitewash of static, and then with a voice; "Kirkwall Champion pilots, report for duty in the hangar immediately. Kirkwall Champion pilots, report for duty in the hangar immediately..."

Hawke let out a whoop of his own as he jumped to his feet, throwing his hand of cards down onto to the table. "Hear that, Isabela?" he cried. "Kirkwall Champions ride again!"

"Stealing all our kills," Isabela bemoaned. "Bring me back something shiny, will you?"

Hawke grinned, even as he quickly gathered his kit back up around him; even when he was technically off-duty, he never let it stray far. "I'll bring you back some radioactive kaiju balls, how does that sound?"

"Oh, Hawke," Isabela said with an exaggerated sigh and flutter of her thick eyelashes. "You _do_ know how to treat a lady. And here I thought you'd get all out of practice."

Donnic coughed, and Sebastian flushed a deep red; Hawke laughed over his shoulder as he dashed towards the doors.

The hallways were thronged with hurrying Shatterdome personnel, though not as many as there could have been; as ear-shattering as the alarm was, it was still one of the lesser ones, not an all-hands at stations call. That alone told Hawke a lot about what he could expect to face; nothing they hadn't faced, and thoroughly curb-stomped before.

Still, it didn't do to get careless. _Never turn your back on the Breach,_ the older pilots said - at least, the ones who had lived long enough to become older. _There's always another surprise._

Hawke had moved quickly, and the other Jaeger Wardens melted out of his path as soon as they saw his face - still, by the time he got to the hangar, his co-pilot was already there, already ensconced in the cockpit and being hooked up to the neural harness. "What took you so long, Hawke?" Varric yelled out, to laughter and hoots of agreement from the other Wardens. "I've been cooling my heels in here waiting for your slow arse to show up!"

"Hey!" Hawke threw himself into a lift, pounding on the cables as though that would make them lift him faster. "Not everyone spends all their time in a Jaeger's cockpit just waiting for things to blow up, y'know. Some of us have lives!"

Varric barked out a laugh. "Ha! Not you, Hawke," he said. "You live for killing Kaiju and we both know it."

The lift finally arrived at the level of the cockpit, and Hawke slid off it into the heart of the great machine, hastily stowing his gear on the hooks and lockers provided for that purpose. "Won't argue with you there, old man," he said, flashing Varric a grin. "In fact, I think I'm ahead by one."

"No way, I'm definitely up one on you!" Varric scoffed.

It was an old joke, and Hawke grinned more from exhilaration and nerves than any real humor as he stepped into his place in the harness and waited for the techs to hook him up. Of course, neither of them could actually be ahead of the other, since all of their kills had been as a team; but the easy banter helped to get the Drift flowing between them.

Varric wasn't wrong about Hawke's passion for killing kaiju. He'd always wanted to be a pilot, ever since the Jaegers were first commissioned and the Jaeger Wardens formed to support them; Hawke had only been a teenager then, but he'd dreamed and trained and plotted for the moment with every testosterone-laced fiber of his being. Seen himself inside a Jaeger cockpit, just like he was now, with _his_ mind and body driving the behemoths into battle in tandem with his partner.

But that had been before the kaiju had made landfall at Lothering, where Hawke's family had been sheltering; before the kaiju's claw had descended on Bethany, his baby sister, before the kaiju had torn his family apart for ever.

After that, it had been personal.

He and Carver had made their way to the Shatterdome together, determined to make it as pilots - everyone said that siblings made the best pilots, after all, had the most shared memories and best chance of compatibility in the Drift.

Or at least that was what the recruitment posters said - the reality failed to live up to the dream. He and Carver, the technicians told them in no uncertain terms, were not Drift compatible. At all.

And that would have been that - the two of them resigned to living out the days of the war in the barracks with the other failed hopefuls. But that night, Hawke had gone in a foul temper to the canteen and proceeded to get spectacularly drunk, and then spectacularly in trouble with a pair of ex-Wardens in the bar and set off a truly magnificent bar fight. At the other end of the bar had been Varric, drowning his own sorrows; he'd made a valiant effort to stay above the fray until a bar stool had smashed over his head. His head won.

So had Varric and Hawke.

The next day they'd presented themselves as pilot-candidates again, and _this_ time the Drift compatibility score had been stunning. They'd been in pilot training by the end of the day, and fitted for neural harnesses by the end of the week. Their first chance at battle had come less than a month later - the kaiju [name and location] - and Hawke had never looked back.

"Left hemisphere on-line," the computerized voice sang in his ear, drawing him out of the stream of memories that always came with the Drift. "Right hemisphere on-line. Neural handshake complete."

Hawke breathed again, feeling as always the strange echo to the breath that came when in the harness, before he and Varric had quite synched up their biorhythms. He keyed up his headset mic. "What have we got today, Warden-Commander?" he asked.

The deep voice of Warden-Commander Cousland cut across the channels, sounding calm and measured and authoritative as ever. "We have an incursion out by the Awakening Sea, on a coastal shelf south of the Breach," he said. "Aveline and Donnic will be your backup, should you need it; the others will stand by to defend the base. Are you prepared?"

"Aye aye, Commander!" Varric said snappily.

Hawke held off for a moment. "Depends, is my boy in the booth yet?" he called out, keying his mic down to the combat channel. "Anders! Are you there?"

There was a rustle of static, and then a warm, familiar voice came over his headset. "I'm here, Hawke," he said. "As always."

Hawke couldn't stop the stupid grin that spread across his face as the words sank in. "Then I'm ready for anything," he announced. "Kaiju can eat my shiny metal ass!"

"Mm, do be careful, love," Anders said, his volume dropping to a deep purr. "Don't do anything reckless out in the field today, or I'll have to find someone else to eat out my ass later tonight. Nobody else's dick is quite like yours, love, so keep it all in one piece and come home safe, all right?"

Hawke felt the flush rising in his cheeks, but he couldn't stop grinning; at least, not until another familiar voice coughed uncomfortably in his ear. "Anders," Aveline said in a strained tone of voice, "you do realize that your mic is set to broadcast to the whole base and not just to Hawke's headset..."

The channel burst out into raucous laughter, and Hawke joined in uproariously, imagining the look on Anders' face when he realized he'd been caught out. "All right!" he said, cutting over the jeers and teasing that were certain to follow. "Let's get this show on the road. Talk kaiju to me, Anders."

Anders cleared his throat, then again before he managed to return his voice to its normal tone. "It looks like a Category Three, code name 'Vartarrel,' " he said.

Hawke heard another voice muffled in the background behind Anders, not over the channel. "Honestly, how do you come up with these names," it said.

"Because that's what it _is,"_ Anders replied irritably, then launched further into his explanation. "We're getting some chemical traces off its saliva that look bad. Don't let it spit on you. Aside from that, just watch out for the legs."

"The legs?" Hawke said, somewhat puzzled. Usually, teeth and claws and horrible stinging quills were a bigger problem than legs.

They had spent the whole conversation slogging across the rocky coast north of the Awakening Sea, their huge stride eating up the distance. They slowed as they entered the water, heavy surf pounding over the metal legs, as they approached the blip on their maps that marked INCURSION.

At first it was just a colorless lump bobbing in the surf above the coastal shelf, too small and distant to even make out its form. As they approached, it seemed to catch wind of them, and turned to charge in their direction. Water sloughed off around it in churning whirlpools as it rose from the surf; a blotchy, mottled-gray hide over its head and back, with a queer pale orange light glowing off its underbelly.

Its head - at least, Hawke guessed it was the head, it was on the forward end of the beast and it was at least vaguely head-shaped - split open horizontally, revealing a ghastly greenish light framed by rows and rows of razor-sharp incisors. It screamed in horrific defiance, grayish flesh bunching and shuffling as it rose from the water... and rose... and _rose..._

"Oh," Hawke said as it reached its full height, towering over them like a massive jumping spider, hissing and raining toxic spittle from far above. It had at least four pairs of limbs that he could see from this angle - some thick and knotted like tree trunks, bearing its massive weight, others thin and spindly and twitching in a nervous, worrying fashion. " _Those_ legs."

"Holy shit!" Varric swore from beside him.

Hawke could only agree. "It's like a praying mantis fucked a spider and had a baby," he said. "A giant, acid-spitting monster baby. That's also a bear."

"That thing's got to be taller than Drakon Tower!" Varric continued. "How is _that_ only a cat-three?"

"Because it may be tall but it hasn't got all that much mass," Anders answered his (probably rhetorical) question. "Those legs are going to be pretty spindly. Break a few of those, and you'll bring the rest of it down within reach."

"Oh, is that all?" Varric said, heavy with sarcasm. Hawke only grinned.

"Sounds like a plan," he said. "Let's do it."

The first part of the fight could only be described as nerve-wracking. Varterral moved fast for something its size, and the thick dragging waters on the coastal shelf inhibited Kirkwall Champion's movement much more than the tall, spindly kaiju. Two thousand tons of metal and wires, the Jaegers had never been particularly delicate instruments, but they'd never felt so clumsy as they did now. They had to stay on edge, every nerve singing, waiting for the right moment to push their Jaeger to the left or the right to avoid a flying gob of corrosive spittle. After seeing the way the water churned and bubbled when it came into contact, and the rapidity with which a nearby rock had been reduced below the waterline, they had no desire to come into contact with it themselves.

Their only saving grace was that the Varterral blatantly telegraphed its movements; it was always obvious where it was aiming to spit next, and only a few minutes of narrow escapes taught them the range of motion on its swinging legs. They were more like mandibles than legs, Hawke thought, and felt Varric agreed; lined on one edge with ugly sawtooth protrusions and ending in cruel barbed hooks.

One of those legs came whistling in towards them from the left side, but Hawke was ready for it; he dodged the swing and then caught it, gripping the insectoid protrusion between the two huge metal gauntlets of the Jaeger. For a moment, monster and machine pushed back equally against each other - then Hawke found the right leverage and _shoved,_ and the spindly leg snapped clean off in his hand.

The kaiju reared back with a hideous shriek, one that made their ears ring even with the muffling protection of the suit around them. The severed end of the limb flailed wildly through the air, and acid spittle sprayed widely into the air and fell in a gentle rain all around them. They could feel the soft pinging and hissing as even the small drops began to eat their way into the metal skin, and had to scoot to get Kirkwall Champion out of range.

Staying in close range to any of the legs was nearly impossible - the kaiju moved them too quickly, and the acid spit made it too dangerous to stay in one spot too long - so they fell back on ranged weapons. Varric was mostly dominant here, although they were still both in sync, and Hawke fell back and let Varric's thoughts race through and around and over him in the Drift. Memories of his childhood in Orzrammar, his mother and brother, the long march in exile. Memories of one shooting range after another, each one blending into another, rifle becoming shotgun becoming handgun in their hands as all their focus narrowed down to the target.

The kaiju screamed and staggered as smoking craters peppered its head, underbelly, and the strangely delicate joints of its legs. Varric didn't shoot wildly or blindly, and he didn't waste ammunition; every shot went precisely where he wanted it to, and every shot hit somewhere that hurt. It was half of what made Kirkwall Champion so effective at their job; between Varric's accuracy and his stingy conservation of ammunition, they could keep up their rate of fire for a long, long time.

Varterral began to limp and stagger as one spindly leg was blown to a smoking ruin, then a second one; it began to sway dangerously on its remaining legs and Kirkwall Champion followed up, harrying the kaiju remorselessly with a barrage of shots to its beaklike head, and blows to its remaining wobbling legs. The creature let out a shriek of agony and hatred, lashing out with its remaining limbs; they dodged, and the motion left the kaiju scrambling and unbalanced.

Seeing the opportunity, they darted in and sliced one of their blades across the bulging, monstrous tendons. Spurting viscous blue blood, the leg buckled - but a spasm knocked Kirkwall Champion back, and their heel caught in a hidden fissure the kaiju's claws had dug in the ocean floor. The Jaeger lurched, the pilots fighting to keep the machine upright even as they struggled to free themselves from the unexpected obstacle. "Shit!" Hawke yelled.

"Champion, move!" Aveline's voice crackled urgently over their comm. "It's about to spit again!"

"Trying!" Varric grunted back over the mike, and put a firm stop to their panicked thrashing. They reached down to brace their gauntlets against an underwater outcrop of stone, and with the new leverage, heaved -

Newly freed, they stumbled to the side, but not quite fast enough to avoid the steaming gob of corrosive acid that the kaiju flung vengefully down on their position. Half of it missed them entirely, splashing down into the water beyond them, but the rest of the acid caught on the Jaeger's right shoulder, trickling down the outside of the arm. A gentle hiss built quickly into a stuttering, grinding groan as the metal skin of the Jaeger writhed under the assault, the edges curling back from the hole being eaten into the interior of the suit, and Hawke flung them both with a splash into the saltwater in hopes of quenching the acid's bite.

Alarms sounded all around him, damage reports and environmental hazard reports, and both pilots staggered and struggled to regain their feet. But over everything Hawke heard one voice, high and panicked over his headset.

"They're hit!" Anders yelled. "Oh, Maker, they're down! Hawke! Hawke, are you all right?"

"I'm fine!" Hawke yelled back, wrenching the Jaeger back upright and into fighting position. He swung around dizzily, strafing the suit's cameras until he could get a fix back on their enemy. "It didn't hit anything vital."

"Oh, thank Andraste," Anders breathed.

"I'm fine too, thanks for asking," Varric said testily over the comm. "But the coolant line to the arm cannon is fucked. I can't shoot again without having it overheat and probably blow up in our face."

"Harren and his boys are going to have a grand time patching that up later, though," Hawke said cheekily.

"Clear the channel," Aveline growled over the headset. "No more chatter. Focus! The kaiju is still active and your Jaeger's integrity is compromised!"

"I told you, we're fine," Hawke countered. It was only the one arm that was compromised; the legs and body of the machine still worked fine. They pushed the Jaeger through the pounding surf, towards the seething boil of water that marked where the kaiju had fallen. The monster was still alive, still shrieking malice and defiance, but its spindly legs lay in shattered ruins; it wouldn't be getting up any time again. "And... Varterral is down! Let's finish this!"

"Over to you now, Hawke," Varric called out, and faded back into the Drift.

Where Varric excelled at ranged combat, Hawke was in his element once Kirkwall Champion got into close quarters. Varric hung back, Drifting, as all of Hawke's memories of every brutal fight he'd ever been in rushed forward. The meaty thump of flesh on flesh, the muffled crunch of breaking bone, the leverage of limb against limb - every kata, every punching bag, every back-alley brawl he'd started - and finished - since he was still a child rushed forward, and Hawke brought their fist down on Varterral's head with a thunderous _crack._

The kaiju screamed and flailed, trying to throw them back, but Hawke hung grimly on. Anders had been right about its size; now that it was down to their level, the eerie elongated legs out of the picture, it wasn't much bigger than Kirkwall Champion itself. But while the legs had been - relatively - fragile and breakable, the thing's body was a tougher nut to crack.

Varterral had six eyes, set in a half-circle around its head; three of them were burst and blind from Varric's sniper-precise shots earlier, and the other three rolled beadily at them as the remaining mandible-legs clawed towards them. Hawke managed to get their damaged arm around its neck and locked on, giving them an anchor when the kaiju tried to shake them off like a dog ridding itself of water, and stabbed downward behind the neck.

The blade ground against armored plate, stuck, and slid off the side; even with all of the Jaeger's strength behind it, the armor was just too thick. The kaiju screamed indignation at the attempt, and snapped its razed-lined beak at their chest. Hawke moved quickly to block, and the teeth snagged for a moment on the Jaeger's arm; before it could bite through multiple layers of titanium-reinforced plate, he keyed on the blast-flamethrower built into the kaiju's arm.

The flame-gun had only a short range, and the engineers had originally wanted to remove it from Kirkwall Champion's arsenal entirely, but Hawke had argued them down. He had _also_ argued them into modifying the barrel to resemble the head and gaping jaws of a metal dragon, which had taken a half-hour monologue on its benefit for crew morale and on the importance of proper imaging for Hawke to be able to correctly manage the weapon as part of the neural interface before they gave in; mostly, Hawke suspected, just to shut him up.

The dragon's head roared, and a searing blue-white blast of flame shot forth into the kaiju's mouth. Teeth charred and crumbled, the edges of the beak blackened, and Varterral screamed in agony as it cringed backwards. Hawke followed the movement, still firing, and the inferno washed over the kaiju's head to blacken its three remaining eyes.

Kirkwall Champion readied for a counter-blow, but there was no need - the kaiju slid back into the water with a enormous splash, keening in bewildered agony. Thrashing around in the shallow water, blind, bleeding and broken - Varric almost felt sorry for the thing.

Hawke remembered a collapsing roof, a descending claw, and a bloody smear on the concrete floor, and he didn't.

"Got one more shot in you, Varric?" Hawke asked as they strode forward, digging hard metal fingers into the kaiju's neck.

"Enough juice left for this," Varric replied.

Together, they forced open the dying Varterral's mouth, and unloaded their guns down its vulnerable throat.

Cheers rang out over the comm as they slogged back to shore, encumbered by the dragging corpse of the kaiju. Ugly and toxic as they were, the bodies were too valuable to be left to rot in the middle of the ocean; the cleanup crews could scavenge much of use from their virulently chemically active hides, and the R&D teams were ever hungry for new specimens to dissect. They brought it as far as a nearby empty beach and dumped it there, so as not to spread its radioactive blood to any inhabited regions, and jogged double-time back to the Kirkwall Shattedome.

Hawke jittered in his harness, all the more the closer they got to the base, until by the time they actually clanked their way into the hangar he was nearly thrumming with impatience. Varric bore it with a weary tolerance born of long practice.

Almost the moment the Jaeger settled into the dock, and the computer's voice announced that the neural link was powering down, Hawke nearly ripped himself out of the harness and began to shimmy out of the piloting suit. Varric looked away with an exaggerated groan, having seen this spectacle too many times; by the time the cockpit doors ground open, Hawke was doffing the last piece of his gear except for his boots. He leapt out onto the open hatchway stark naked, thrust his fists in the air, and roared "I AM THE CHAMPION OF KIRKWAAAAAAALL!"

"Nice to know I'm just chopped liver," Varric remarked from inside the cockpit, but Hawke ignored him; he leapt from the Jaeger to the hangar floor without waiting for the lift to crank slowly up, and dashed off through the hangar to a chorus of mocking whistles and dismayed groans. As much fun as it was to pilot the metal suit he needed to be out, he needed to move, to be free - needed the reminder that he was a human, in a human body, and nothing more.

Of course, that was only part of the reason for him streaking the base; mostly he just liked seeing how far he could push the limits of the base crew's tolerance for erratic, eccentric behavior on the part of a Jaeger pilot. He'd heard some truly crazy stories of the Jaeger pilots who had come before him, and he was determined to top them in at least _some_ way before he was through.

Nor was that all he meant to top. Hawke skidded around a turn, palm stinging from the rough metal doorway he'd used as a brake, and took the steps to the control room three at a time. It was a controlled bustle of chaos, as usual, but Hawke only had eyes for one person: down at the end of the bank of machines, headset still perched over his ears, was a strawberry-blond man in a white button-down shirt.

The _third_ reason he so enjoyed doing this.

Anders was laughing, covering his mouth with his hands, and beet-red with mortification at the same time. As Hawke approached, wearing nothing but a grin and a swagger, his eyes traveled involuntarily down Hawke's body from head to foot before he clapped one hand over his roving eyes and let the laughter escape. "Oh, Hawke," he gasped out, between helpless laughter. "Oh, Maker. Not again. What am I going to do with you?"

Hawke struck a pose, hands on hips, and waggled his eyebrows at Anders outrageously. "Mm. What _are_ you going to do with me?" he said, leering. "Will it take all night? It just so happens that my calendar's clear after saving the world..."

"It would be nice if it involved clothes!" Aveline called from the next station over, in a disgusted voice. Anders clapped his hand back over his mouth, unable to hold back the whinney of laughter.

"Indeed it would," spoke a deep, measured voice from behind him; Hawke had to take a moment to control his expression before he turned around, acting casual like he reported to his Commander in the nude all the time. Which, to be fair, he did.

Warden-Commander Cousland stood in the center of the control room, chaos parting around him, and the only sign of discomfiture was a quirk of his lips that he couldn't quite smooth out. "Well done out there today, Kirkwall Champion," he said, speaking also through his own headset to Varric, still back in the Jaeger cockpit. "We can expect no less of the Hawke-Varric team. But, I admit I would expect a little more in the way of professional decorum."

"Really?" Hawke raised his eyebrows. "Have you even _met_ me?"

Cousland shook his head. "Get dressed, Pilot," he said firmly. "Come to my office for a full debriefing. _Then_ you can take the rest of the day off."

Only Cousland could have said that with a straight face to a naked man without the slightest hint of either embarrassment or innuendo. Hawke was still working on a good play on words involving 'debriefing' when there was a cough behind him, and a gentle hand tugging at his elbow.

"Come on, love," Anders said, pulling him around. He was holding out a pile of fabric - Hawke recognized the pieces from his own wardrobe, Anders must have brought the change of clothes with him to his post as soon as the incursion alarm sounded. Hawke couldn't help but chuckle ruefully as he accepted the clothes and the hint.

At least when he had pulled on a pair of pants and a shirt, Anders rewarded him with a kiss - deep and thorough, full of Anders' passion and his frustrated worry. "I saw you go down out there earlier," Anders whispered, when they parted for a moment for air; his hands, hooked around Hawke's low back under the loose sweatshirt, clenched for a moment with remembered fear. "I thought I'd lost you."

"Who, me?" Hawke scoffed. "It'll take more than a spindly cat-three to take down the Champion of Kirkwall."

"I'm not doubting you, love," Anders assured him. "It's just - never turn your back on the Breach. There's always another surprise waiting."

"I'm not worried," Hawke said. "Not as long as I know you've got my back."

Anders' eyes softened, and he leaned in for another kiss. He brushed his fingers lightly over the front of Hawke's shirt, threaded his fingers through the gaps left by buttons all mismatched to the wrong holes from Hawke's hasty dressing. Hawke pulled him close, rubbing up flush against his lover's body, until a hoot from one of the other technicians in the control room brought them out of their reverie. "Hey, pilot!" he yelled out. "Party in the canteen at nineteen hundred! You gonna be there? Or are you gonna be _occupied?"_

"Hey, I'll have you know I'm the one doing the occupying," Hawke yelled back over his shoulder; Anders groaned and buried his face against Hawke's neck, skin heating to incandescent red again. "But yeah, we'll be there!"

"Wouldn't want to miss your party," Anders murmured, regretfully taking a step back and let his hands slide down to Hawke's forearm. Hawke stopped him before the could lose contact entirely, taking Anders' hand in his and raising it to kiss the palm.

"Can't deprive them of the man of the hour, you know," he replied.

"What is Varric, chopped liver?" Anders said with a laugh.

Hawke sighed regretfully. "I should go meet with the Commander before nineteen-hundred," he said. "But we'll pick this up again tonight."

"It's a date," Anders promised him.


	2. Chapter 2

Title:  
Rating:  
Warnings:  
Summary:  
Author's Notes:

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By the time Hawke got out of the debriefing with Cousland, the party had already gotten started; he heard the echoes of the muffled bass rhythm from a floor away. All the post-Kaiju kill parties were held in the H-M block pilot's lounge, where they had a dimmer for the fluorescents and piped in staticky, low-grade music over the PA system.

Aside from that, there wasn't really much in the way of luxuries in Kirkwall Shatterdome to whip out for parties - the food was the same terrible food it always was, and the booze was the same terrible booze, although there was at least more of it. It was up to them to make the atmosphere a party one, and they did their best; every pilot on base was invited, as well as however much of the support staff was invited and could cram into the lounge.

Varric was already well established in his habitual seat; the seam-burst armchair under the tiny television screen, flanked by rows of vinyl couches. He spotted Hawke as soon as he walked in, and raised a pewter mug to him with a joyful call. "Hey, Hawke! Man of the hour!

"Look alive, people!" Hawke called out as he swaggered into the lounge. "This is a Hawke party now!"

"Can't be," somebody jeered from the back of the crowd. "The Shatterdome's not on fire and nobody's naked."

"Yet!" someone else yelled, and Varric laughed.

"I've been saving you a drink," Varric said. "Come on, kill it like Varterral!"

This prospect was met by cheers and raucous catcalling on the part of the party guests, so Hawke put a swing in his step as he walked across the lounge to claim the oversized mug Varric pushed down the table towards him. For the look of things he picked it up, struck a pose, and then downed the entire thing in one go.

It was half again the size of the normal tankards, and Hawke was already beginning to feel a bit full in the face by the time he reached the bottom of it; but he had an image to keep up, so he downed the last drop and threw his head back with a gasp, shaking the empty mug upside down in proof. The cheering from the rest of the lounge redoubled, and Hawke took a bow.

"Hawke?" Straightening up, he glanced around until he saw Anders waving him from the end of one of the couches; there was an empty space beside him, which Hawke cheerfully claimed after collecting two more drinks. Anders immediately cuddled up against his side, and Hawke enjoyed a thorough haven't-seen-you-in-two-hours-welcome-back snog before he settled back against the cushions.

Anders leaned away from him and craned his neck, looking Hawke up and down. Hawke grinned. "What are you doing?" he said.

"Checking for grill marks," Anders said.

Hawke laughed. "Ha, as if the Commander would have anything bad to say about me," he said. "I'm awesome."

Anders gave him a pinch to his ribs that made him jump, but then followed it up with an apology kiss. "Awesomely hubristic, you mean," he said.

"Yeah, that does sound like me," Hawke agreed, and then tilted his head back to look around the room. "Looks like the party's really getting started."

Though the night was yet young, the party had already shaken down into the usual little groups; the open space near the kitchenette had been converted into an impromptu dance floor. It had been claimed mostly by the younger base personnel with more energy to burn after a stressful day, but also by Aveline and Donnic, who were standing in a close embrace in the corner slow-dancing (in all defiance of the actual music.)

The kitchenette itself now sported a modest snack bar; Hawke was somewhat surprised to spy Sten lurking over by the edge of the kitchenette, since the stoic giant rarely left the Commander's side. But the lieutenant's presence became clear once he saw the package of highly rationed, highly coveted shortbread cookies being passed around - Sten's voracious sweet tooth was often joked to be the only way they could tell him apart from the Jaegers.

The seats nearest to the counter had also been colonized as a cocktail station; Isabela was mixing drinks, Hawke didn't even want to know with what. All the usual suspects were crowded into that area as well - Merrill, flushed and giggling after only one glass of something pink and bubbling, Oghren knocking back whiskey like water, and Fenris with his crutches leaning up on the barstool beside him.

"I have a feeling the party got started sooner for some of us than others," Anders commented, eyeing Fenris without favor. Although Fenris only had one empty cup on the bar beside him and another in his hands, he already looked well on his way to being thoroughly smashed. Sebastian was hovering nearby, as usual, and his faint expression of worry was always a reliable barometer as to Fenris' state of inebriation. "Maker, how many did he have before he even bothered to come down here?"

Hawke shook his head. "You know he can't tolerate opiates, love," he said. Due to its relatively easy and inexpensive production process, morphine was pretty much the only painkiller they had available to them on the base; after that, it was back to the old 'a shot of gin for the pain' methods. Or, in Fenris' case, a whole bottle of gin. Or two.

Anders pursed his lips disapprovingly. "I don't know why the Warden-Commander puts up with it," he said.

"As long as he keeps it out of the cockpit, Cousland won't interfere," Hawke replied. "Whatever gets him through the day, just like the rest of us."

Hawke didn't know Fenris' story - Fenris' transfer from the Minrathous Shatterdome well predated Hawke's arrival in Kirkwall, and they weren't exactly close enough friends for Fenris to share all his secrets. Most of the rest of his history was buried under a patient confidentiality seal in the infirmary records - but some signs lingered, like the tattoo scars that ran over Fenris' arms, and neck, and face. Rumor had it that the designs had been tattooed on his skin with kaiju blood, although how they'd managed to neutralize it thoroughly enough not to kill him on contact Hawke had no idea.

Whatever they had been, on arriving at Kirkwall Fenris had gone to considerable effort and discomfort to get the tattoos surgically removed - but even their erasure left a fine filigree of pale scars in the places they used to be, white lines highlighted against his dusky skin. That, combined with his habit of self-medication, were the only outward evidence of whatever had happened to him in Minrathous.

"All right, everyone!" Varric yelled out, climbing up on top of the table and holding up his hands to get the attention of the room. Obligingly, even the staticky music turned down to a low muffled thumping. "Now, I know that everyone in this room by now has gotten at least one drink - with the exception of our resident teetotallers, here," Varric bowed quickly towards Sebastian, and then Anders. "You do realize that by abstaining, you've basically designated yourselves emergency backup drivers? If a kaiju attacks while we're all in here drunk, the two of you are going to have to get in a Jaeger together and go fight it."

Laughter filled the room in response to this pronouncement. Sebastian chuckled wryly, though Anders only twisted uncomfortably in Hawke's arms. Varric went on. "So while we've still got the booze to do it with, I'd like to propose a toast!"

He held his own ceramic mug up towards the ceiling, and for a moment his wide smiling features grew serious. "It's easy to get used to this life, this constant struggle," he began, into a suddenly quiet room. "It's easy to fall into the rhythm of the job and think of it as just another day job, something to fill the hours and bring home a paycheck. It's easy to get to comparing one of those monsters against each other, and begin to think that they're not such a big deal at all. It's easy to get to thinking that a kaiju like Varterral is "only" a Category Three, and that means it's small or weak or not worth our time.

"But let's never forget that even a "minor" monster like Varterral, if it were allowed to have its way, will mean the death of thousands - even millions - of people. Let's not forget that they don't stop, they don't _ever_ stop, until one of our Jaegers puts them down. Let us remember that every - single - one of these kaiju could mean the end of the world as we know it, the end of life for millions of people - if not for what we do here.

"And let's not forget that it takes every one of us here to make that possible. Not just the Jaeger pilots - handsome as we are - " this earned a laugh, and Varric bowed again as Hawke pumped enthusiastically in the air - "But the mechanics, and the scientists, and the booth bunnies, and the administrators, and the cooks, and yes, even the fucking janitors, every single one of us plays a part in keeping the Shatterdome running and these monsters off our shores. So let's all drink up, because today we saved the world. Again!"

Varric climbed down off the table to general claps, hoots, and plastic cups raised high and sloshing in salute. "Even if we could have all done without the unsolicited sneak peek into Hawke's sex life," Aveline called out dryly, even as she applauded Varric's speech. Anders buried his face against the side of Hawke's neck, skin heating with another luminescent blush.

"Speak for yourselves!" Isabela yelled out in response, nuzzling up against Merrill who had somehow migrated into her lap. "I for one thought it added color to an otherwise very dry broadcast."

Aveline snorted. "I just feel sorry for Varric, having to Drift with him," she said. "I'm sure he gets a head full more of Hawke's sex life than anyone else needs to see."

"Hey, I'll have you know that there's nothing about my sex life that's a trial to live through," Hawke objected, crumpling an empty plastic cup and tossing it in Aveline's direction. Throwing it with his left hand it went wide, since his right was still pinned between Anders and the back of the couch.

"I can't help but being concerned, however," Sebastian said to Varric. "I mean, it's easy to joke about, but it can't be easy for you, can it?"

"How do you mean?" Varric asked, taking a long pull on his drink.

"You know... being forced to witness Hawke's... sexual acts, with you being... as the Maker made you," Sebastian stammered slightly, gesturing to Varric.

Varric's eyebrows rose in disbelief, and Sebastian's complexion flushed a little darker. Varric took another drink, then chuckled. "Choir boy, I don't know where you've been getting your information," he said, "but the 'a' doesn't actually stand for 'allergic.' It's not like wolfsbane - I'm not going to shrivel up and die from being exposed to other people bumping uglies. Personally, I don't find the two-man tango to be worth my time and effort, but if Hawke and Blondie do? Hey, more power to them."

"I, ah... I apologize for assuming..." Sebastian started, but Varric waved him off with a 'don't worry about it' gesture.

"I just remind myself that it could have been worse," Varric said, raising his voice above the general laughter. "If I ever start feeling sorry for myself I just stop and think: I could have wound up partnered with Bartrand, listening in on HIS sex life!"

The lounge rang with laughter; Varric really knew how to work a crowd. He'd be auditioning for the role of Warden-Commander next, Hawke thought with fond amusement.

"Speaking of brothers," Donnic said when the hubbub began to die down. "Is Carver not joining us tonight?"

That put a damper on Hawke's good mood, and he scowled. "No. He's out with the salvaging crew," he said, trying not to sound too petulant. "Frying his nuts off with radioactive kaiju blood and destroying the possibility of at least _one_ of us carrying on the family name someday."

"You don't approve?" Donnic sounded surprised. "It's important work."

"It's stupid work is what it is," Hawke argued back. As the family member of a Jaeger pilot, Carver could have lived in (definite) safety and (relative) comfort on the base as long as he wanted without ever having to wade hip-deep through kaiju entrails. "He doesn't have to go out there and get his face chewed off by kaiju lice, but he does it anyway. Risking his fool neck -"

Another pinch to his ribs interrupted him; Anders had apparently gotten over his terminal case of embarrassment. "I'm sorry to say it, love," Anders said, sounding not at all sorry to say it. "But you are a _howling_ hypocrite."

"Look, anyone could do salvaging -" Hawke started.

"But not just anyone would," Merrill chimed in; she'd been puttering about the lounge, picking up discarded cups and stacking them neatly for re-use. "I think it's pretty brave of him, don't you?"

That gave Hawke pause. "That's not the point," he said at last, sulkily. "It would have been different if we'd been pilots together. Pilots can't be spared, there aren't enough of them -"

A harsh laugh interrupted him, and Hawke began to wonder if anyone was planning to let him finish a sentence tonight. "Oh, Maker spare us from the prospect of a Hawke and Hawke sibling pilot team," Fenris called out from his perch at the bar. "It's bad enough with Varric along to temper just _one_ of your fool recklessness."

"Excuse me?" Anders demanded indignantly. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I said what I said," Fenris said with a sneer. "Hawke is a disaster in the cockpit, who half the time ends up destroying whatever town he's gone out to save."

"Ooh, are you boys going to fight?" Isabela purred from the sidelines. "Will there be nude wrestling involved? I brought oil. C'mon, fight!"

Hawke scoffed. While there was a grain of truth in Fenris' accusations, it wasn't like Andraste's Fist was any better - some amount of collateral damage was just par for the course in any Jaeger-Kaiju battle. They tried to keep the battle sites away from habitable areas when they could, but the fact was that a little localized damage and a dead kaiju was far preferable to the massive damage that could result from a kaiju running unchecked, and Fenris knew this perfectly well.

Fenris was just being Fenris; he took the business of fighting kaiju even more personally than Hawke did. The two of them had something of a friendly rivalry going on - at least, Hawke liked to think it was friendly - since Kirkwall Champion and Andraste's Fist were the two newest, largest and best-armed of the Jaegers present at the Shatterdome. If anything, Andraste's Fist had the edge in hardware, equipped with a new and experimental phase-punch engine that let them rip through Kaiju armor like tissue paper (if only for a few seconds at a time, with several weeks to recharge.)

"Just ignore him, love," Hawke said, giving Anders' arm a squeeze. "He's just jealous because he's got a fancier Jaeger than me but still can't match my kill-count."

Anders ignored him, shaking off Hawke's arm as he stood up, facing Fenris. "If you've got a problem with Hawke, you've got a problem with me," he said.

Fenris scowled at him. "I'm perfectly capable of having a problem with you all by yourself, without Hawke to hide behind."

"Me, hiding behind Hawke?" Anders laughed scornfully. "That's rich coming from you. Is it even you talking right now or the alcohol you've poured into your bloodstream that's making you brave? Too much of a coward to face the world sober?"

"Blondie..." Varric muttered, reaching out to take hold of Anders' elbow. Anders shook him off, still glaring daggers at Fenris.

Fenris sputtered. "I don't have to take this shit from a crazy, washed-up failure like you," he sneered.

Anders flushed red to his ears, and his fists clenched. "Oh, I'm a washed up failure, am I? At least I was a _real_ pilot, when I had the chance. Not a lab experiment like you! You know you never would have been any use to anyone without Danarius' research!"

Danarius? Hawke didn't know who that was, but just the mention of his name spread a poisonous silence through the lounge like kaiju blood in a pool. Fenris blanched white, then his face began to slowly darken with a rush of blood as fury filled his visage, his tattoo scars standing out in livid white. It took him a few sputtering moments to find his tongue, and when he did it was in a stream of vicious Tevene. "Venhedis! Vishante kaffas! You dare?" he nearly screamed, reverting to Common. "You? You're no pilot! You failed your mission, you lost your Jaeger, you got your copilot killed! It's _your fault_ he's dead and it's _your fault_ we're under-strength! Worthless, defective piece of trash. You ought to be out rotting in the camps with the rest of the garbage! Instead, you're living in the lap of luxury as Hawke's little pet and pretending that you're still good for something more than fucking!"

For a moment, Hawke was sure that Anders was going to throw a punch at Fenris, and he winced in horrified anticipation. Even laid up off his feet as Fenris was, there was still a better than even chance that he'd win any fight Anders started, which left Hawke torn: he figured he had a duty to support his boyfriend, but attacking a guy on crutches was _really_ bad form. "Ooh, are the boys gonna fight?" Merrill piped up excitedly. "C'mon fight! Fight!"

"Hush, kitten," Isabela muttered.

Their voices shattered the spell that had been cast over the room. Anders inhaled one deep breath; he was shaking all over, Hawke noticed with worry, from head to foot. Fists tight, he turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

"Andraste's fucking grace, Fenris," Isabela groaned, breaking the awkward silence that fell in his wake. "We've all got trauma, okay? That doesn't excuse being an absolute prick about it."

Fenris looked a little green around the ears, not a good contrast with his coloring; he huddled further down on his bar stool clutching his drink. "He started it," Fenris muttered.

"No, actually, you did kind of start it," Varric observed.

"I started it with Hawke - he knows better," Fenris protested. "If _he_ hadn't decided to involve himself -"

"I don't fucking want to hear it," Hawke snapped. "You can sharpen your claws on me all night long if it makes you feel better about yourself, but leave Anders out of it!"

He stormed out. By the time Hawke got out into the corridor, Anders was gone from sight. Hawke sighed. It was going to be another long night of hide-and-Anders.

"Hawke, wait!" A familiar voice called out from the lounge doorway, and Hawke slowed and turned with a sigh. Aveline was a breath of home, the only survivor of Lothering apart from himself and Carver, and as little as he wanted to talk to anyone right now he couldn't turn his back on her.

Aveline caught up to him in the dimmed corridor, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Listen, Hawke," she began, "don't be too hard on Fenris. He -"

"I know. I get it, okay?" Hawke interrupted. "I know he's been through a lot, and he can't be entirely rational on some topics. But it's not fair to Anders to ask him to just eat shit and smile when Fenris calls him 'defective' and 'crazy'."

Aveline's hand tightened slightly on his shoulder, the tension in her hand mirrored in her frown. "...he's not entirely wrong, you know."

"What?" Hawke stared at her; ready to laugh, certain he must have misheard.

"About Anders," Aveline said reluctantly. "I mean, he doesn't need to be so cruel about it, but he's got a point. Anders isn't... stable."

"Sorry, what?" Hawke knocked her hand away from his arm. "How did we get from Fenris being a prick to you telling me my boyfriend is crazy?"

Aveline fell back a step and crossed her arms, staring at Hawke with her lips tight. Hawke stared back, meeting her gaze with a challenge, and Aveline sighed. "Look," she said. "How much do you know about what happened with Freedom's Call?"

Freedom's Call. It took a minute for him to place that call sign, and when he did he was ashamed to have forgotten it; that was Anders' old Jaeger, from when he'd been a pilot. "I know it was involved in the battle of Colean Sea," he said finally. "I know the Jaeger was totalled, and his copilot died. That's all."

"There was more to it than that," Aveline said, leaning up against the corridor wall. "The battle of Colean Sea was a united push on the Breach... to find a way to destroy it once and for all. They failed, and the Jaegers involved had to retreat or were destroyed - including that one, but during the battle, Freedom's Call passed into the Breach itself."

Hawke felt a cold shock race up his spine, and he stared in disbelief. "What? How?"

"We don't know how," Aveline said. "We don't know how they got back, either. We don't know much at all, because all the Jaeger's recording instruments shorted out the moment they went through the Breach. The only recordings we do have are the pilots' suits life support telemetry. Hawke, the pilots of Freedom's Call were without oxygen for seven minutes in the Breach. Human brain death normally occurs after two.

"By the time they got back..." she sighed heavily. "Karl was unconscious. Anders managed to pilot Freedom's Call back to shore by himself, but... the neural strain, combined with the oxygen loss... I'm sorry, but there's no way he could have come through that without major brain damage. He was delirious for a week, raving when he was conscious at all, with constant seizures - he had to be restrained, to keep him from attacking the orderlies. No one thought he would ever recover... and when he did, he was different."

The look of pity on her face was too much; Hawke wanted to crack some inappropriate joke to wash it away, but for once in his life he couldn't think of one. All he could think of was Anders, the man he loved, tossing and turning in a hospital bed with his brain scrambled. Hawke had been on the end of enough bad disconnects to know how crushingly painful it could be to be alone in a harness, and he'd only ever been there for a few seconds. "What do you mean, _different?"_ he finally managed to say.

"I mean different as in complete personality shift, of the Phineas Gage-railroad-spike-through-brain variety," Aveline said sharply. "You didn't know him then, Hawke. You don't know how he used to be. He was so easygoing back then, so happy, so quick with a joke."

"He still is," Hawke pointed out quickly.

Aveline shook her head. "Not like he used to be. Now he's moody, irritable... loses his temper at the drop of a hat... constantly picking fights. The slip in the booth today -"

"Maker's Breath, Aveline! Are you still on about that?" Hawke raked his hands through his hair.

"- is just the last in a long series of outbursts," Aveline siad, ignoring his interruption. "Anders has no impulse control whatsoever."

"Neither do I," Hawke snapped. "I'm kind of famous for it, actually, or did you miss the whole running naked through the Shatterdome thing earlier?"

Aveline's lips pressed into a tight line of annoyance. "That's not what I'm talking about -"

"And have you considered that maybe the reason he's 'moody' and 'irritable' is that people who are supposed to be his friends like to talk about him like he's damaged goods behind his back?" Hawke continued.

Aveline glared, then let her gaze soften. Her voice when she spoke again was soft, pitying. "I know this is hard for you to hear, Hawke, but he's not alright," she said. "That he survived is amazing - that he's functioning at all is a miracle - but he's not ever going to be normal again."

Hawke could deal with Aveline's prickliness, but it was the pity in her eyes that stopped him cold. He had to swallow hard to get past all the words crammed in his throat, all the wrong shape and size that he couldn't make himself say. "...What happened to his copilot?" he asked after a long silence. He'd known that Thekla was dead, but he'd always assumed the other pilot had died in the harness. If he'd made it back to shore alive, why wasn't he here now? "To Karl Thekla, the other one who went through the Breach and came back."

Aveline's gaze slid off towards the floor. "...They put him on life support, but that was all they could do for him," she said. "He was a complete flatline - no brain activity at all. When Anders was coherent enough to understand, he asked for the plug to be pulled. He said that Karl wouldn't want to live on like that, like a vegetable."

"Anders asked?" Hawke repeated, startled.

"He was Karl's designated next of kin," Aveline said with a shrug. "They couldn't prove he was mentally incompetent, so it was his decision."

Hawke's breath caught. He'd known Karl's name - Anders didn't like to talk about him, but he'd at least known that the two of them were lovers. But designated next of kin... That went far beyond just 'lovers.' He'd had no idea, none at all.

"He had to watch his lover die," Hawke realized. "And you don't think that's reason enough for a bit of moodiness after? I know this might come as a shock to you, Aveline, but some people do actually grieve."

Aveline's gaze snapped back to him with a glare and a snarl, and Hawke realized that he'd gone too far. He actually felt a stab of shame over it, a rare event in the life of Garrett Hawke. He took a step back, bowing his head and holding up one hand. "I'm sorry," he said, before she could rip into him. "That was uncalled for. I know you loved Wesley, and I know you grieved for him."

She took a deep breath, visibly reigning back in her temper. "Accepted," she said tightly.

An awkward silence hovered in the corridor between them, before Aveline let out a sigh. "Hawke, I'm not trying to destroy your relationship with Anders or anything like that," she said. "He makes you happy, you make him happy, good for both of you. But you really need to stop trying to force him into the chain of operations like you do. Ever since Karl's death, he's refused to even hook up to a pilot simulator. Whatever he was capable of once, he's not now."

"He does a perfectly fine job in the booth -" Hawke started.

"Reading off printouts from the R&D department!" Aveline threw up her hands in exasperation. "That's not exactly brain surgery. We could train a mabari to do that if they could talk."

"Did you actually just compare my boyfriend to a dog?" Hawke asked.

"For Andraste's sake, Hawke, I'm not trying to tell you this because I enjoy tearing him down," Aveline snapped.

"Could have fooled me," Hawke growled.

"I'm just trying to get you to see reason - for all our sakes," Aveline pushed on. "Anders doesn't belong in the Shatterdome any more."

"So, what then?" Hawke couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You agree with Fenris? You think we should kick him out of the Shatterdome, send him back to the camps? You know what Meredith does to 'marginals' who 'can't pull their weight.' That's a pretty fine reward you have in mind for service and sacrifice. I'll be sure to remember it if Varric and I are ever injured in combat."

High spots of color flared in Aveline's cheeks. "I don't care where he goes or what he does, but I don't want him on control if Donnic and I are out in battle!" she shouted. "I won't risk either of our lives or our Jaeger to coddle your broken boyfriend with an artificial sense of self-worth!"

She shoved past him in the hallway, her back rigid as she marched back towards the lounge. "He's not broken, Aveline!" Hawke yelled after her. "And if you'd just give him a chance, instead of forging blindly forward on your assumptions, you'd see that. But I suppose that's always been what you do best!"


End file.
